Author Of Adult Fiction

#MyWritingProcess

So, as it seems, the lovely Molly Shaffer (@MrsShafferJMS) tagged me for this awesome ongoing Writing Process blog hop. We met during the #NewAgent competition, which was a fantastic learning experience, and even better for networking with talented and phenomenal writers. Molly, is of course one of those lovely people. You must follow her! You can also find Molly’s blog and the answers about her writing process here.

I’m stealing the description of #MyWritingProcess from Molly, as I didn’t even know it was a thing until she tagged me.

About #MyWritingProcess…

“We writers share these things, but informally during workshops and at conferences (and, for a handful of established writers, in printed interviews), but not so much through our open-forum blogs. With the hashtag #MyWritingProcess, you can learn how writers all over the world answer the same four questions. How long it takes one to write a novel, why romance is a fitting genre for another, how one’s playlist grows as the draft grows, why one’s poems are often sparked by distress over news headlines or oddball facts learned on Facebook.”

Here are the four questions I was asked to answer.

1.) What are you working on?

A women’s fiction tentatively titled ‘Redemption’ about the daughter of a serial killer. Twenty years ago, a young boy, Aidan, inadvertently convinced Molly to turn in her murderous father, Peter Blake. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in time to save the boys mother. Now, a hit and run thrusts Molly back to Aidan’s life, only he has no idea who she really is. On top of that, mysterious occurrences and threats put them all in danger. A fan of Peter Blake is either after Aidan and his family, or Molly. If someone found out who she really is, it could destroy the little bit of happiness she’s found. Molly must find redemption in the truth and her decisions if she’s to find peace in herself.

2.) How does your work differ from others of its genre?

Well, that’s a good question. I’m hoping it’s a unique story line that will intrigue people. There’s many stories written about serial killers, and being a victim of, but I haven’t read many books that portray the family of a serial killer. Also, not one where said family is thus injected into the life of one a family affected by the serial killer. It makes sense in my head, but I guess I don’t really necessarily think of how it makes it different among all the other books in the genre. I’m just hoping it’s a novel that people will enjoy.

3.) Why do you write what you do?

Actually, I usually write Urban Fantasy. I enjoy fantasy themes and creating different worlds. This is my first attempt to write a novel in the women’s fiction genre. In the end though, I write what I write, because the characters tell me too. They’re like disembodied voices whispering their stories to me. It can get extremely loud in my head. In this case, Molly won out as the loudest protagonist and she had the most interesting story–at least to me. I write what I write because it’s what I come up with. I don’t want to be held down to one genre. There are so many stories to be told, and I don’t want to limit myself.

4.) How does your writing process work?

For the most part. I sit down. I write.

Everyone has a million and one things, but I find the best process is to just simply get it down. Good, bad or indifferent, I continuously write until it’s done. I make notes in between of places, events, characters, etc, I keep character sheets and pivotal points, but all that is developed as I write. Once the story is completed, I can go in and edit it, adding or taking away, fixing sentence structure, fighting with my characters about why they need to do something, and polish it up. If I try to edit as I go, yeah, I’d never finish the story.

Onwards and Upwards:

#MyWritingProcess may not make a whole lot of sense to other people, but it does to me. I’m happy to have shared it, and would once again like to thank the wonderful Molly, (who I just realized has the same name as my protag) for tagging me in this. Now, as for me, I shall tag two to attempt the challenge!

The first being the beautiful, and very talented Tiffany Marie Rosenthal. She is my critique partner and always has a fantastic idea, opinion, or something to say to help me out. Follow her on twitter at @TRosauthor

The second shall be Chris Votey who can be found on Twitter @authorvotey because I chit chat with him and think it would be fun to find out more about his writing process.